50 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ MARCH 8, 2021
Review_NONFICTION
Christianity’s
complicity in
justifying both.
Readers should
not pick this up
looking for
fixes; when De
La Torre does
discuss making
change, he
focuses on the
fundamentals:
“Provide food for those who are hungry,
give clean water to those who are thirsty...
bring justice to the incarcerated, and
provide medicine to the infirm.” These
basic tenets that Christ gave to his followers
are, for De La Torre, the key points that
white supremacist Christianity forgets.
While De La Torre’s premise will likely
make some bristle, Christians within a
Protestant evangelical tradition may find
it eye-opening. (May)debuts with a host of suggestions for ways
religious Americans can get meaningfully
involved in politics. Haslam shares his
concern about the country’s deep divide,
but writes that “people of faith can and
should play a leading role in healing the
wounds of this country.” He concedes that
achieving that aim is an uphill climb,
because “too often the words and actions of
Christians have done more to inflict those
wounds than to heal them.” Haslam uses
anecdotes from his public service—such as
his veto of a bill that would have made the
Bible the official state book—to illustrate
how he balanced his official responsibili-
ties and his private beliefs, and considers
various aspects of his faith, such as the
importance of humility when engaging
those with different political and cultural
leanings. Haslam urges readers to do
away with “reacting out of fear” and
instead follow the “formational practices
of following Jesus” to “serve in the public
square for the common good.” His insis-
tence that every person must be viewed as
having been made in God’s image informs
his perspective on dialogue with others.
Readers open to thinking about the rela-
tionship between church and state will
benefit from this sensible advice. (May)Decolonizing Christianity:
Becoming Badass Believers
Miguel A. De La Torre. Eerdmans, $24.99
(224) ISBN 978-0-8028-7847-2
De La Torre (Reading the Bible from the
Margins), professor of social ethics at the
Iliff School of Theology in Denver, argues
in this incisive analysis that the white
supremacist tradition in the Protestant
church must be recognized in order for
those who have been disenfranchised to
understand the inherent lies within these
“unjust social structures” and seek ways
to move forward. Insisting on white
Christianity’s inextricable ties to and
foundations in genocide, racism, and
sexism, the author aims to show how
Christianity has been used as a “mask” to
cover “death-dealing policies” and to
“demonstrate how dispossessed commu-
nities have believed the lie of white
supremacy.” To support his arguments,
De La Torre cites America’s history of
slavery and imperialism (“a white nation
built on stolen land, with stolen labor,
using stolen resources”), as well asReligion/Spirituality
★ Moral Majorities Across the
Americas: Brazil, the United
States, and the Creation of the
Religious Right
Benjamin A. Cowan. Univ. of North Carolina,
$29.95 trade paper (312) ISBN 978-1-4696-
6206-0
Cowan, professor of history at the Uni-
versity of California, San Diego, follows up
his 2016 monograph Securing Sex with this
persuasive study of evangelical Protestant
conservatism in the Western hemisphere.
Focusing on the relationship between
right-wing religious and political conser-
vatives in the United States and Brazil,
Cowan constructs a nuanced argument that
religious and political conservatism in
these two countries are deeply entwined
and often work in concert—most recently
in the mutually admiring relationship
between former
U.S. president
Donald Trump
and Brazilian
president Jair
Bolsonaro.
Cowan starts his
analysis in the
1950s with the
international
activities of
American con-
servatives Carl McIntire and Paul Weyrich,
who aimed to “construct a transnational
New Right” through organizations such as
the International Policy Forum. Cowan
also highlights the response of Brazilian
religious conservatives to Vatican II
(1962–1965), arguing that Brazilian and
American conservatives agreed on an
essential vision centered on fear of “mod-
ernism,” which included communism,
feminism, sexual liberation, and gay
rights. This deeply researched, closely
argued of work will be a valuable contri-
bution to the field of conservative studies.
(May)Faithful Presence:
The Promise and the Peril
of Faith in the Public Square
Bill Haslam. Thomas Nelson, $26.99 (240p)
ISBN 978-1-400224-42-5
Former Tennessee governor HaslamFICTION
A Broken Darkness Premee Mohamed.
Solaris, ISBN 978-1-78108-875-3, Mar.
The Marriage He Demands Brenda Jackson.
Harlequin Desire, ISBN 978-1-335-23282-3, Apr.
The Noble and the Nightingale Barbara Ann
Wright. Bold Strokes, ISBN 978-1-63555-812-8, Mar.
★ The Tallow-Wife Angela Slatter, illus. by
Kathleen Kennings. Tartarus, ISBN 978-1-912586-
24-0, Apr.
NONFICTION
Central America’s Forgotten History:
Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of
Migration Aviva Chomsky. Beacon, ISBN 978-0-
8070-5648-6, Apr.
★ The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood;
Youth; Dependency Tove Ditlevsen, trans.
from the Danish by Tiina Nunnally and Michael
Favala Goldman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
ISBN 978-0-374-60239-0, Jan.
★ Liftoff: Elon Musk and the Desperate
Early Days That Launched SpaceX Eric
Berger. Morrow, ISBN 978-0-06-297997-1, Mar.
No Planet B: A Teen Vogue Guide to the
Climate Crisis, edited by Lucy Diavolo.
Haymarket, ISBN 978-1-64259-259-7, Feb.
Shifting the Balance: How Top Organiza-
tions Beat the Competition by Combining
Intuition with Data Mark Schrutt. ECW,
ISBN 978-1-77041-574-4, Apr.http://www.publishersweekly.comONLINE ONLY